


D'aimer et D'être Aimé

by lipslikepetals



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Canon character deaths, Developing Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 16,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lipslikepetals/pseuds/lipslikepetals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes they steal kisses beneath blankets in dim fox-holes, but more often they sneak into the forest, go on long walks until the other men start making jokes about Babe turning into Dike. The few who even think twice about it assume Babe has some kind of embarrassing medical problem he wants to discuss at length with the medic, the irony of which isn’t lost on Babe. He knows some people would consider him sick in the head, but he looks at Gene and the way his tired eyes gleam when they’re together and he wonders how anyone could ever call what they have a sickness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: This work is based on the fictionalised characters in the miniseries, and no disrespect is meant to their real-life counterparts. I do not own these characters. 
> 
> I've played with the canon timelines a little, hopefully not too much.

   Babe didn’t pay much attention to Doc Roe, not at first. Of course, he appreciated the medic and his work, knew with quiet confidence that if ever anything happened to him, Doc would be there, but the truth was that the small, dark-haired boy from Louisiana never really factored much in his thoughts.  
   Until Bastogne. Babe isn’t sure what caused the change, what brings the medic more and more to mind as the days drag on. Perhaps it’s the physical conditions, the cold and the hunger and the constant, uneasy boredom. Perhaps it’s the shelling; almost every day someone is wounded – sometimes the wounds are minor, sometimes grievous – and the sight of Doc sprinting past his fox-hole, medical bag in hand, becomes all too familiar. Or it might be Spina, who was always much freer with his conversation than Roe, and who has begun to regale Babe with grisly tales of his own work on the battlefield. Whatever the cause, Babe often finds his thoughts drifting to Doc, with his red-cross armband and his blood-covered jacket. Eyes drifting to him as he sits silently while everyone else talks and laughs, listening to the conversation but never part of it. Babe notices his hair, unnaturally dark and thick like an animal’s, and the way his nose is a constant shade of angry pink. He thinks of Doris, whose nose was always pink, too, and remembers the way it used to brush his cheek, just as his own nose traced her jaw and breathed in her scent. For a moment – just a moment – Gene takes her place, soft skin switched for hard stubble, rosewater switched for sweat and blood and sulfa… Babe shakes his head, surprised and somewhat ashamed at himself, and tries to bury these thoughts.

   The morning is cold – well, colder than usual – and Babe is more grateful than ever of his gloves. Spirits along the line are high, considering the circumstances; Joe Dominguez’s ‘rancid-ass beans’ are just as rancid as ever, but they are also more plentiful than usual, and the men silently thank whoever’s scrounging abilities have blessed them with this bounty. Babe can’t decide whether to savour his portion or to cram it into his mouth as quickly as humanly possible, and he stares at the beans, conflicted.  
   “I don’t think Hitler’s in your beans, Babe.” Skip Muck’s voice comes from somewhere above him.  
   He decides to go with Option #2, and tips the whole lot straight down his throat. Skip thumps down heavily next to him, completing the circle.  
   “What a shame. For a minute there I thought we could all go home.” Malarkey has gone with Option #1 and appears to be inspecting each bean individually before he eats it.  
   “Keep dreamin’ buddy. At this rate Hitler’ll die of old age before we ever jump into Berlin.”  
   “Not if we die of old age first.”  
   The good-natured chatter continues, but Babe barely notices it. Instead, not for the first time, his attention is focused on Gene, who sits a small way off from the rest, smoking and staring into the distance.  
   “Was he always like that?” Babe asks no-one in particular.  
   “Who, Doc?” Malarkey swivels to eye Gene. “Like what?”  
   “I dunno. Off by himself. Has he always done that, you know, since Toccoa?”  
   Malarkey shrugs and returns to his beans. “It’s a medic thing.”  
   “Didn’t they tell you that at basic?” Skip looks at him. Babe shakes his head. “A medic can’t get too close to the men, ‘cause then he can’t do his job properly. Hard to think straight when you’re elbow deep in your friends’ intestines.” He laughs and elbows Babe genially.  
   The logic of it hits Babe immediately. He’d always thought the Cajun boy was just a natural loner, but the thought of him isolating himself on purpose makes Babe’s heart ache.  
   “What about Spina? He’s friends with everybody.”  
   “Yeah, but that’s Spina. You could lock him in a box at the bottom of the ocean and he’d find a way to make friends with the fish.”  
   Babe continues to watch Gene. _He shouldn’t be alone_ , he thinks, _not here_. Absurdly, he resolves to make friends with the medic. Right now. He pushes himself to his feet before he can think better of the idea, forces himself to put one foot in front of the other. Part of him is screaming, _this is dumb_ , and _he isolated himself for a reason and you should leave him to it_ , and _he doesn’t want to be your friend_. But another part of him, stronger but far less articulate, propels him forward.  
   He asks Gene for a light, even though he knows he has one in his jacket pocket. For a horrible moment he wonders if Gene knows it too, but Gene offers up his own lighter without hesitation, holding it still in front of Babe’s cigarette until the flame takes. “Thanks.”  
   “How’re your feet?”  
   “Oh, you know, good. They hurt, but whose feet don’t?” Babe laughs weakly and takes a drag, wondering what madness possessed him to try and start this conversation.  
   “You keeping ‘em dry?” The look of authoritative concern Gene gives him makes the knot in his stomach tighten. He wills it away, wishing he could understand why it was even there in the first place.  
   “Yeah… yeah, I…” He swallows. “How– How’re _your_ feet, Gene?”  
   “What?”  
   “Well, you know, you’re always askin’ everybody how they are, but no-one ever asks you how you are, so… so… I’m askin’.” _Stupid, stupid, stupid_. But it was too late to back out now.  
   “I’m fine, Heffron.” Gene’s eyes are lit up with wry amusement. “Thanks for asking.”  
   “Okay. Good… Okay. Well I’ll uh, I’ll see you around, Doc.”  
   As he wills the flush to fade from his cheeks, Babe reflects that all the nervous stammering and butterflies were worth it to bring that faint smile to Gene’s lips.


	2. Chapter 2

   Julian is hit and Babe can’t save him. He tries, he tries so hard, but afterwards he will think of the blood that gushed from Julian’s throat, and the way he could see his windpipe exposed to the cold air, and he will think that he didn’t try hard _enough_. Julian was just a kid, fresh-faced and eager to be accepted by the older men, men who were veterans of Market Garden and Normandy, men who must have looked so much larger than life in his eyes. _A virgin, a goddamn virgin. Not even old enough to buy a beer_. Babe closes his eyes and leans back against the dirt. On top of everything, he feels guilty for shouting at Gene earlier – Edward? Really? Not even his Ma calls him that – but mostly he just feels relieved that Gene wasn’t there. He would have gone to Julian, Babe knows, and no amount of bullets could have stopped him. And he would have been killed. The thought that he values Gene’s life over Julian’s makes him ashamed.  
   When the emptiness of his fox-hole threatens to overwhelm him he goes searching for Gene, but the medic is nowhere to be found. _One medic’s as good as another_ , he thinks wryly as he slips under a blanket to join Spina. Spina, to his credit, seems to sense that talking is not what Babe needs right now and simply throws an arm around him without a word. Babe tries to stay mad at Gene when he, too, slips into the fox-hole, tries to take out on him some of the guilt and anger and shameful relief he feels, but the way Gene’s whole face lights up with a whispered ‘Gotcha!’ make it impossible. Eventually, Babe sleeps.

\---

   Babe is out in the open when the shelling starts. Caught between fox-holes, he scurries bent-double, head low, arms reaching pre-emptively for the hole in the dirt that is his only focus. It’s undignified, but dignity is the last thing on his mind. He’s almost there – so close – when the sharp pain he has been half-expecting the entire campaign finally finds him. He realises he’s flat on his back in the snow, unsure whether it was the physical or emotional shock that took his feet from under him. He touches his fingers to his side, and they come away wet and sticky with blood.  
   “ _Medic! Med_ \- ”  
   Gene’s there before he can even get the words out.  
   “Hey, Heffron,” he murmurs, deftly pulling aside the layers of jacket and shirt and undershirt to get at the ruined skin underneath.  
   “What’d I tell ya ‘bout callin’ me ‘Heffron’, Gene?” Babe jokes weakly.  
   Gene pauses. His deep, always-troubled eyes catch Babe’s and hold them, keep holding them, for what seems like an impossibly long time. The mortars crashing all around them seem to fade out of existence.  
   “…Gene?” Babe manages finally. “Gene, I’m bleeding here.”  
   Expression breaks over Gene’s face like a drowned man breaking the surface of the water. Lips pursed, he gets back to work, pressing the bandage tight to Babe’s ribs and tying it around his chest.  
   “Is it bad?”  
   “Uh-uh. It ain’t bad.”  
   Babe swallows. “Then don’t make me come off the line.”  
   “What?” Gene’s eyes narrow, but he doesn't look away from his work.  
   “I ain't coming off the line, Doc.”  
   Gene licks his lips and mulls it over for a second. “Fine.” He seizes Babe by the collar and drags him bodily to the fox-hole he had been trying so hard to reach only minutes before. He crouches beside Babe, who slumps roughly in a heap, exhausted, and pokes and prods and re-ties until he’s satisfied with Babe’s condition.  
   “Stay here.” He says. A slight pause. Gene’s hands try to busy themselves but there is nothing to busy themselves with. “…Stay safe.”  
   And then he’s gone, chasing after a call of ‘ _Medic!_ ’ audible only to him. Sheltering in the relative safety of his little hole in the dirt, Babe tries to ignore the pain in his side and the thumping of mortar-hits, and wonders when exactly ‘Doc’ became ‘Gene’ in his head.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, apologies if the French is completely wrong, which I'm sure it is. I wish I could speak it, but translators will have to do for now.

   Gene gives Babe a look that says ‘ _Follow_ ’ and Babe is relieved, because for the last couple of hours, every time he’s moved, sharp pains have gone stabbing up and down his side. He can feel that there’s something lodged there and he wants it out, bad. Other than that, he hasn’t really inspected his wound – partly because he’s afraid to, partly because if Winters were to see or even hear about it, he knew it would be an instant ticket back to Bastogne. Instead, he’s been trying to think of legitimate reasons for staying on the line. Somehow, they elude him. All he knows is he won’t leave, won’t lounge in an aid station while his friends – and Gene – huddle in their fox-holes, and he has to hope that will be enough for Gene.  
   “Let me see it.”  
   They’re not far from 2nd Platoon’s position, but the snow muffles and obscures until they could be miles away from another living soul. Dutifully, Babe helps push aside the layers of clothing, peel back the sodden gauze. He bites back a gasp as the bandage pulls at his skin.  
   “Got any liquor?”  
   Babe hands over his flask, sorry to see it go, and watches intently as Gene uses the whisky to gently clean the blood and dirt from his side. The alcohol stings on contact, and Babe hisses through his teeth.  
   “You’re lucky. It’s only a 9mm round, small. Probably a Luger. Hit you here –” A rough, slender finger slowly traces a line from the top of his hip to his ribs. “–and lodged here. Any other angle…” Gene shakes his head. “Hold still.”  
   Babe crams a fist into his mouth to stop from shouting as Gene uses his knife to dig the bullet out, handing it over wordlessly when he’s finished. Babe stares at it, marvelling at how such a small, pathetic lump of misshapen metal can cause so much damage. He wonders whether it’s good luck or bad to be hit by some trigger-happy officer, although he’s sure if he were hit by an enlisted man with a rifle he’d be dead.  
   Gene sighs. “This is deep, Heffron. Real deep. You’re gonna need stitches.”  
   “You got the stuff for that?”  
   “Yeah, but… they could do a much better job back in Bastogne.”  
   “Do it.”  
   Gene’s hands dive into his medical bag like they have so many times before, and when they pull back out again Babe notices for the first time just how much blood has worked its way into the skin, made a home in the lines of his palm, the furrows at each knuckle. Gene uses his lighter to sterilise an evil-looking and curved needle, before producing a syrette of morphine.  
   “Hey, hey – I don’t – save it, Doc. Save it.”  
   Gene’s looks Babe full in the face, eyebrows raised. “It’s gonna hurt.”  
   “I know. I’ll survive.”  
   He regrets his decision immediately. He knew the pain was coming, thought he’d prepared himself, thought it would be nothing compared to what he’d already been through, but he was wrong. His knuckles are shoved into his mouth once more. Babe tries to breathe deeply through his nose, tries to think of anything but the pain, reflects how much more everything hurts when there’s no adrenalin to carry you through. He focuses on Gene – the furrowed brow and hard set of his mouth, concentrating, the way light shines through the translucent cartilage of his ears to turn them a glowing pink. But even Gene can’t distract Babe from the feeling of the needle piercing his skin, dragging the thread behind it, the pull as each stitch is tied off. Babe bites harder and harder into his fist until he tastes blood.  
   Finally, after what seems an eternity, Gene puts the needle away, and Babe is left sweating and gasping with relief. He wipes some of the sweat from his face, remembering too late the bleeding bite-mark on his hand, and tries to bring his heart rate back down to normal.  
   There’s a long silence. Gene watches him, concerned.  
   “…Edward?”  
   “Yeah?”  
   “…You can let go a’ me now.”  
   “Oh.” Babe reddens at the realisation that his other hand is still clenched tight, fingers digging in hard to Gene’s thigh. He releases his grip, mortified. “Sorry.”

   Babe tries to hide the way his legs wobble as they walk back to the platoon. He feels clammy and weak, and the way the air fingers his damp skin chills him through all his clothes. His wound throbs uncomfortably.  
   “Jesus, Babe, what’d Gene do to you?” Spina jokes when he sees him. “You’re white as a sheet.”  
   He forces a laugh, but it sounds hollow even to his own ears. “Nothin’, I’m fine. Cold is all.”  
   Spina shoots him a look that’s half-incredulous, half-concerned, but leaves him to it.  
   He collapses in a heap in his fox-hole, shivering violently, and tries to keep his eyes on the line. He considers making coffee, but he can’t bring himself to move. To take out the stove and kidney cup and rations seems an unjustifiable effort. After a while, the shaking subsides, and Babe feels almost as if he’d be able to get some sleep. Not cold for the first time since he came to the Bois Jacques, he pulls his gloves off.  
   “Babe?” There’s a thud, and a warm body next to him in the hole. “Babe, you okay?”  
   “I’m fine.”  
   “You don’t look fine.” Spina’s round face peers into his own. “Hey, Gene! C’mere!”  
   Another thud, another warm body. A reassuring murmur in deep, Cajun tones.  
   “Heffron? Heffron, look at me.” The hand placed on his forehead is freezing. His eyelids are so heavy. “Jesus, Babe, you feel like ice.” Gene’s deep blue eyes look more concerned than Babe’s ever seen them.  
   A blanket appears from somewhere. Babe shakes it off. “I’m not cold, honest.”  
   “It’s hypothermia, Babe. You gotta get warm.”  
   Babe, groggy but stubborn as ever, refuses. With some difficulty, the two medics force the blanket around him. Even in his semi-conscious state, Babe is acutely aware of Gene’s arm across his shoulders, the way the other man’s thigh is pressed against his own.  
   “Hey Spina, go find some coffee. Someone around here’s gotta be makin’ some.”  
   The warmth on his left disappears. The warmth on his right pulls him tighter – or he thinks it does, he might be imagining things. His eyes drift closed.  
   “Hey, hey, Babe! Don’t go to sleep, you gotta stay awake for me.”  
   “Sorry.” He mumbles. “I’m tryin’.”  
   “You know any songs? Sing me a song.”  
   The only song Babe can think of is Blood Upon the Risers. “ _He was just a rookie trooper and he surely shook with fright_ –”  
   To his surprise, Gene joins him. His voice is soft and smooth and deep, and Babe almost forgets to sing himself for listening to it. Eventually, Spina returns with the coffee.  
   “I can’t stay.” He says as he hands it to Babe. “Christenson’s puking up his guts down the line.”  
   Gene nods. “Go.” He turns back to Babe. “Another song.”  
   The coffee is hot and bitter, and the warmth it sends through his chest makes him feel ill. He drinks it anyway.  
   “I can’t think of any other songs.”  
   “Not a single one?”  
   Babe shakes his head. “You speak French, right? Teach me some French.”  
   “What d’you wanna learn?”  
   “I dunno. Teach me some swear words.”  
   “Uh… well there’s _baiser_ , means fuck… as in, to fuck somebody. If you just wanna say ‘fuck’, then it’s _putain_. But _putain_ can also mean whore.” Gene smiles. “French can be a tricky language.”  
   Babe mouths the words sleepily to himself, filing them away for future reference.  
   “What do you say, you know, when you meet a skirt in a bar and you wanna take her home?”  
   “You can say anything you like, she can’t understand it.”  
   Babe rolls his eyes, even though he knows Gene can’t see them. “But what d’ya say?”  
   “I don’t know… I usually just ask them to dance.”  
   “You know, Gene, if you don’t quit being such a wiseass I’m gonna be compelled to do something I’ll regret.”  
   Babe feels Gene’s laugh, rather than hears it. “ _Je m’excuse_.”  
   “Okay, you’re me, hypothetically. You meet a real classy dame. What line do you give her?”  
   “Well… you could tell her… _mon cœur bat plus vite lorsque vous êtes près de moi_. Or, uh,” He shifts slightly. “ _Vous me faites oublier moi-même_.”  
   “You’re gettin’ me real hot under the collar, Gene.”  
   He laughs. “Oh, _on va chez toi ou chez moi_?”  
   “What?”  
   “Nothin’.”  
   “Gene?”  
   “Yeah?”  
   “Can I go to sleep now?”  
   The medic’s hand is laid once more across his forehead. “How do you feel?”  
   “Cold.”  
   A faint smile plays on Gene’s lips. He tightens his arm around Babe, who nestles into his shoulder. “Yeah, you can go to sleep.”  
   Gene looks down to find the pale, young South Philly boy already dead to the world.  
   Later, Babe will wake to find his fingers intertwined with Gene’s, but he won’t be able to remember whose hand reached for whose.


	4. Chapter 4

   “Hey, Babe.”  
   Gene has started calling him ‘Babe’. He’s had the nickname for years, yet somehow it sounds different on Gene’s tongue, moulded by the deep Cajun lilt into something new and beautiful.  
   “Babe. You got somethin’ on your face.”  
   Gene uses his cuff to rub something from his cheek, a move that reminds him forcibly of his childhood, of the impromptu wash his Ma would always give him before Mass.  
   “Jesus, Babe, who’s blood is that?”  
   “I dunno. Mine probably.”  
   Gene shakes his head, exasperated, and Babe fights to keep his breathing steady as Gene’s fingers graze his jawline.  
   “You oughta be more careful. Look out for yourself, ‘uh?”  
   “I will, Gene. I will.”  
   “Good.” Gene’s eyes hold Babe’s for a long moment, and then he nods once and is gone. The knot in Babe’s stomach seems to ease. He feels like a fifteen year old with a crush. _Is that what this is_ , he thinks, _a crush?_ The word feels wrong, but every time he looks at Gene his stomach tightens, and the other man’s touch sends shivers rippling through his skin. He thinks of Doris, of her rustling taffeta skirts and her ‘Dear Babe’ letter, and of all the other girls before her. Most were prim and shy, girls who liked to giggle and whisper to each other and would only kiss him when they thought no-one was looking. But there were a few, maybe two or three, who were loud and boisterous and wonderful, who would match him drink for drink and help him win jitterbugging competitions – sometimes in that order. Those had been the girls Babe liked best. But none of them had made him feel like this, not since he was still in school. He touches the scapular at his neck.  
 _Does this make me a queer?_  
   He wonders if he’s going to hell. He wonders what his Ma would say. He wonders what Gene tastes like.

\---

   Again, the look that means _‘Follow’_. Again, the short walk until the fog and snow pull close, leaving Babe and Gene the only people in the world.  
   “It’s time those stiches came out.”  
   Babe is already settling into the snow. Gene kneels beside him, pulling aside his jacket and shirt, lifting his undershirt to peel away the wad of gauze. This time Babe can’t hold back a gasp as Gene’s fingers brush his skin.  
   “Sorry.” The medic murmurs, breathing on his hands to warm them. Babe doesn’t tell him their temperature had nothing to do with it.  
   Gene sets about cutting and tweezing out each stitch – a process that fascinates Babe. It hurts, but there’s also a feeling of relief, like working out a splinter, and Gene’s fingers are long, slender, unerring. Babe wonders if Gene notices the reaction he provokes, what he would say if he knew the way Babe was beginning to feel about him. He hears Gene praying, some nights. Would he be uncomfortable? Disgusted, even? The idea makes Babe feel sick.  
   “Got anythin’ left in your flask?”  
   It’s not without regret that Babe hands over the last of his whisky, and watches as Gene bathes the ragged red line in his side. The wound is closed but still raw - he thinks of the dashing scar he’ll have to show off to the girls, after the war.  
 _After the war_.  
   He back in South Philly, Gene in Bayou Chene. The men of Easy scattered all over the country, trying to pick up the lives they left behind. Will he see Gene, telephone him? Write? Will a mumbled goodbye and a fumbled handshake as the train pulls into 30th Street Station be the last time he feels the other man’s skin brush his own?  
   “Alright, Babe, I’m just about d–”  
   It’s almost an instinctual reaction, not governed by any conscious thought process, but suddenly he’s leaning forward, mouth finding Gene’s –  
   The full force of what he’s done hits him almost immediately and he pulls away, flushed.  
   “Christ Gene, I’m sorry, I – I don’t – ”  
   But then, amazingly, absurdly, magically, Gene’s lips reconnect with his own, rough hands moving to his neck and threading through his hair. Babe’s hands find Gene’s hips and rest there almost limply, all mental faculties focused on the way Gene’s tongue is prying his mouth open wider, on the heat of him pressed close in the cold forest.  
It might be seconds or it might be days, but still it seems too soon when they break apart, Gene’s hands still tracing the outline of his face and winding their way through his hair.  
   “You know, Babe, I was beginning to think you’d never kiss me.” The Cajun boy’s for-once broad smile draws a breathless and disbelieving laugh from Babe.  
   Coffee, he thinks. That’s what Gene tastes like. Coffee.


	5. Chapter 5

   Sometimes they steal kisses beneath blankets in dim fox-holes, but more often they sneak into the forest, go on long walks until the other men start making jokes about Babe turning into Dike. The few who even think twice about it assume Babe has some kind of embarrassing medical problem he wants to discuss at length with the medic, the irony of which isn’t lost on Babe. He knows some people would consider him sick in the head, but he looks at Gene and the way his tired eyes gleam when they’re together and he wonders how anyone could ever call what they have a sickness.

   The Bois Jacques swallows up sound, muffling the way Babe’s jacket rustles as Gene’s hands trace the subtle curve of his hips, the soft noises that Gene makes when Babe’s teeth graze his neck. Babe kneels in the snow, damp leeching unnoticed into the knees of his trousers. Experimentally, he swings a leg over Gene, straddling him the way his old girlfriends used to do. He wonders what that says about his masculinity, but the hand Gene slips up the back of his undershirt pushes the thought out of his mind.  
   Mouths pressing into each other’s insistently, hands exploring each other’s skin, almost frozen in the cold air – they’re too absorbed in each other to notice the footsteps crunching through the snow until the source is almost on top of them.  
   “Hey, Gene, that you? I got some kraut bandages for – ”  
   Spina’s eyes widen as he takes in the scene before him. His mouth opens and closes a few times, seemingly trying to put voice to words that won’t come, a red flush creeping up his neck. The three of them stare at each other in stunned silence. With a choked sound, Spina throws the bandages at Gene, whose hands move quickly from Babe’s hips to catch them, and beats a hasty retreat.  
   Babe looks at Gene. A laugh wells unbidden from Babe’s lips, tumbling out of him uncontrollably as he buries his head in Gene’s chest. Gene laughs too, properly laughs, a deep and wonderful sound Babe’s never heard before.  
   “You think he’ll say something?”  
   Gene shakes his head. “Uh-uh. What would he say?”  
   Still chuckling, Babe wraps his arms around Gene’s neck, savouring his smile; the glimpse of rabbit teeth made all the more endearing for its rarity.  
   The smile fades all too soon, as Babe knew it would. Gene pushes Babe’s hair off his face, expression undefinable. “You know my grandma always said red hair was lucky.”  
   “Yeah?”  
   “She used to say redheads carry the sun with ‘em wherever they go.”  
   “Wish that were true, Gene. I might not be so cold all the time.”  
   Gene doesn’t laugh. The silence stretches out between them, snow falling steadily, filling Spina’s footsteps and creeping cold fingers down the back of Babe’s neck.  
   Finally, Gene seems to stir from his reverie. “ _Vous me faire oublier moi-même_ , Babe.” He says. “You make me forget myself.”  
   He smiles sadly, quiet a moment longer.  
   “We should be gettin’ back.”

\---

   It’s Christmas Eve, and Babe is determined as he slips under the blanket to join Gene in his fox-hole.  
   “You shouldn’t sleep alone in this cold, Gene. You of all people should know that.”  
   Gene doesn’t reply, but he relaxes into the kisses Babe starts pressing down his neck. Babe’s nervous, but he’s been thinking about this for the last few days and he’s made up his mind. Pulling a glove off with his teeth, his hand snakes its way down until it finds its goal – the waistband of Gene’s trousers. Gene stiffens as he feels Babe start to work on the buttons of his fly, but his body responds despite himself.  
   “Babe…”  
   Babe’s fingers find bare flesh, hot to the touch. He’s unsure, hesitant – it’s unexpectedly different to touching yourself, and he’s not quite sure if what he’s doing is right, but a sudden intake of breath from Gene tells him it is. The thought that at any moment someone could lift the blanket and let the moonlight pour in gives Babe a sort of heady thrill, and he thinks the whole world could hear Gene’s heart, it’s beating so loud. Babe quickens his pace, drawing a muffled groan. Gene’s head is tilted back, eyes closed - there's moment of déjà vu as his hand finds Babe’s thigh and digs in hard. Babe presses a few more kisses to his throat and savours the inarticulate noises welling there.  
   There’s a hot rush and it’s over.  
   Sooner than Babe would have expected – probably due to the fact that no man in the company has been near a woman or a shred of privacy in near on a year – but he doesn’t mind. Awkwardly, he attempts to clean up, but Gene seizes him by the chin and pulls his face to his own, kissing him with both a tenderness and an intensity that leave him feeling weak. It takes a concerted effort to mumble the words he’s been planning to say since he first slipped into the fox-hole.  
   “Merry Christmas, Gene.”  
   “Merry Christmas, Babe.”  
   The Bois Jacques lies sparkling and cold under a few feet of snow, but inside their hole in the dirt the pair of them are warm and safe, and from the German line drifts the first strains of Silent Night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for a longer gap than usual between updates. Family junk, been flyin' all around the country yo


	6. Chapter 6

   There’s a voice. Faint but audible.  
   “Shit, you hear that?”  
   Guarnere tenses up as a shell hits close to their fox-hole, holding his helmet to his head. “I don’t hear nothin’.”  
   Babe ducks, shielding his face from the foot-long splinters hurled through the air by a nearby tree-burst. “I swear, I hear somebody.” He listens closer, straining to hear over the crashing of shells. “Shit, Bill, I think it’s Liebgott.”  
   “I still don’t hear nothin’.”  
   “Liebgott, that you?” Babe calls. He can’t make out the words of the reply, but he can definitely hear it.  
   He hesitates a moment. “Fuck it, I’m goin’ to him.”  
   “Jesus, Babe. Don’t get yourself killed.”  
   “Try not to, Sarge.”  
   With an instinctual look to either side, Babe vaults out of the hole and legs it across the open ground.  
   “Lieb! Lieb! Where are you?”  
   Keeping low, he follows the voice. He finds Liebgott half-hidden under a tangle of branches, shoulder pinned down, unable to get enough leverage to free himself.  
   “You know, Babe, I ain’t never been so glad to see somebody in my life.”  
   “This is no time for lyin’ down, Lieb.” Babe jokes as he braces against the largest branch, trying to shift it. Even using all his weight it barely moves, but it's enough, and Liebgott manages to wriggle free.  
   “Okay, go!"  
   Lieb doesn’t need to be told twice. The two men sprint blindly in the direction of the nearest fox-hole, jumping small shell craters and debris, struggling to keep their footing on the icy ground –  
   The impact feels like a baseball bat to the thigh.  
   There’s no pain, except for a slight stinging above his left ear. The world seems to slow, sounds muffled, ears ringing. Someone, maybe Liebgott, is yelling something.  
   “Hey, Babe. You’re gonna be okay.”  
   Hands scrabble at his clothes, tearing.  
   Gene.  
   “Can’t see a damn thing.”  
   Voices drift in and out. One moment things are clear, the next he can’t hear anything at all. He feels cold.  
   “Where are you bleedin’, Babe? Huh? _Where the hell are you bleedin’?"_  
   There’s a hint of panic, a jarring note in a voice Babe has never heard be anything but calm. He reaches out a hand, searching, feebly attempting to give comfort. Gene doesn't take it. Instead, he grits his teeth.  
   “Got it.” He voice is steadier now, but Babe can feel the way his hands shake as he pulls the tourniquet tight around the top of his thigh. A wave of nausea forces his head back down when he lifts it to look, but a glimpse is enough to see the snow turning a steady pink, Gene bloody to the elbow. Babe’s blood. So much of it. A blackness starts to creep in at the edges of his vision.  
   “Shit, Gene, I think I’m dying.” He manages, faintly.  
   “You’re not dying, Babe.”  
   “Okay.”  
   Gene finishes sprinkling sulfa over Babe’s leg before pulling the cap from a syrette with his teeth.  
   “I don’t need it.” Babe mumbles, truthfully. Gene ignores him. A wave of warmth and calm washes over him, the throbbing above his ear disappears. He closes his eyes.  
   “Hey. Hey! Babe! Stay awake. You gotta stay awake for me.”  
   “Okay, Gene.”  
   When he opens his eyes again his vision is blurred. Gene is tapping his arm with two fingers, plasma bottle tucked under his chin. Someone, maybe Lip, says something to him. No sooner than the needle finds the vein, Babe feels the ground drop away, two pairs of strong hands holding him tight. The rumble of the waiting jeep is oddly soothing.  
   Warm hands cradle his face, and Gene swears under his breath as his fingers brush above his ear and come away sticky. Babe finds it endearing and heartbreaking in equal measure, the way Gene balances the plasma bottle precariously between his shoulder and cheek, helmet bobbing with each bump in the road, the look of obvious distress on his face as his hands dig frantically in his medical bag.  
   “I love you, Gene.”  
   He’s said it. He meant to say it long ago, but could never find the words.  
   “Uh-uh. Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare say goodbye.”  
   “Sorry.”  
   Babe feels gauze connect softly with the side of his head. Gene is gentle, even with the jeep jolting them both every few seconds. His eyes flutter closed.  
   “Babe, listen t’me. _Babe._ ”  
   It takes a momentous effort to drag his eyelids open again, but he does it. For Gene.  
   “I love you too. With all my heart. I love you.”  
   The darkness creeping from the edges of his vision finally reaches the centre, and Babe slips quietly under.


	7. Chapter 7

   Babe wakes slowly, drifting in and out of consciousness, blurry shapes eventually drawing together to form a vaulted ceiling. He’s lying on a table in a church, the damp heat of a hundred other casualties pressing close despite the cold outside. His head throbs uncomfortably, a dull ache caressing his leg from knee to hip.  
   “You’re awake.”  
   Patches of colour resolve themselves into a figure, a nurse in brown and blue with tender eyes and soft hands. She tells him she’ll get him something for the pain, and returns to his surprise with a glass of gin. Babe thanks her dubiously.  
   “We thought you might not wake up. A coma.”  
   “A coma?”  
   “Because of your head.”  
   The nurse begins to unwind the bandages wrapped around his thigh. Waves of pain shoot through his leg as the material pulls away from his wound, releasing a flood of half-congealed blood and gunk from a fist sized hole in the flesh. Babe downs the gin.  
   “Eugene was here this morning. He was very worried about you.”  
   “Gene was here? Wait, _this morning?_ How long was I out?”  
   “Two days and a half.”  
   “Jesus!”  
   The nurse pulls away the last of the gauze, and begins to replace the soiled bandages with fresh cloth. The new dressing is cool against his skin, but Babe has to grit his teeth against the pain as she pulls it tight.  
   “Why was Gene here? Is someone else from Easy hurt?”  
   “ _Non_. He came for supplies. And to see you, maybe.” She smiles. “I think you are very special to him.”  
   Babe thinks of Gene, out on the line. He wonders what’s happening there, whether Gene is elbows deep in a sucking chest wound or sharing coffee with Smokey in a warm fox-hole. It seems wrong that he should be here, comfortable on his hard but dry table, booze and pretty nurses to keep him occupied, while Gene is somewhere out there in the snow.  
   He realises the nurse has finished dressing his leg and is looking at him, a sort of sad knowing on her face. “And I think he is very special to you, also.”  
   “Yeah.” Babe lays his head back on the table, staring up at the ceiling far above him. “Yeah, he is.”

\---

   His leg feels like it’s made of wood, if wood could feel pain. It’s been four days, including the two he was asleep, and Babe is beginning to lose it.  
   “Hey. Hey, you awake?”  
   The corporal on the cot beneath him stirs. “Yeah, why?”  
   “Wanna go for a walk?”  
   Babe thinks he might pass out when he puts his weight on his injured leg, it hurts that much, but the other soldier supports him, and slowly they make their way past casualty after casualty and into the dimness beyond.  
   Babe lets out a low whistle. “Look at that, will ya?”  
   The floor of the room they’ve come to is strewn with boxes and litter, but the walls are intricately carved, a shaft of dusty light revealing the ceiling to be a deep blue and adorned with tiny stars. Babe runs a hand over a statue of the Virgin Mary nestled into a niche in the wall.  
   “What the hell are we doing here?”  
   “It was your idea.”  
   “No – I mean – _here_. All of it. I mean, look at this place.” Babe waves a hand at the room. “How long do you think before they blow it up? How many more places like this you think _we’ve_ blown up?”  
   The corporal is silent for a moment. “We didn’t start this war.” He says, finally. “What were we supposed to do? Let Hitler invade all of Europe?”  
   Babe sighs. “I know. You’re right, I know.” He winces at he puts his weight once more on his injured leg. “We should head back.”

\---

   Babe slips away on these little walks whenever he can, trying craftily to bring himself up to strength for his eventual jailbreak. The two of them explore the church, with its hidden treasures and painting and crypts, and marvel at the craftsmanship, the years of art and culture that went into the creation of a building destined to house a hundred sweaty, leaking soldiers. The nurse, Renée, eyes him suspiciously when she sees him hobbling around on the corporal’s arm, but she says nothing. One morning, Babe turns to the corporal, whose name he never asked, and finds him dead.

   In the afternoon, Gene arrives. His eyes are sunken and dark, skin sallow, lips cracked. Babe aches for him. Guilt wells in his chest, for being warm and safe while Gene is suffering.  
   “How you feelin’?” he asks.  
   “I feel fine, Gene. Just fine.” Babe props himself up onto his elbows, unsure where to go from there. “Anyone from Easy hurt?” he asks, lamely.  
   “Toye took a piece in the wrist, ain’t bad. They’re stitchin’ him up now.”  
   He turns to look, and sure enough Toye manages to shoot him a grin – between winces, as the nurses dress his wound. Babe turns back to Gene.  
   The silence hangs heavy between them. He tries to guess at what Gene must have felt, riding with him in the jeep, seeing him comatose in the aid station and not knowing if he’d ever wake up. He doesn’t know what to say. _I miss you. I love you._  
   He licks his lips. “What I said, in the jeep… I know I wasn’t thinking straight, but – I meant it, Gene.”  
   Gene’s voice is little more than a whisper. “I know.” He says. “And I’m sorry I didn’t react how I should’ve – ”  
   “Hey, no – ”  
   “It’s just – you were bleedin’ so bad, Babe. I thought –” His voice breaks. “I thought I couldn’t save you.”  
   In that moment Babe wants nothing more than to kiss him, to take him in his arms and hold him in front of the wounded and the nurses and fuckin’ everybody, and not give a damn who sees. But he can’t. Instead, he takes Gene’s hand and holds it tightly, trying to somehow convey everything he feels through touch alone, and hopes it’s enough.


	8. Chapter 8

   Babe has to clench his teeth against the pain when he tries to walk without limping. The look Winters gives him tells him he’s not fooling anyone, but the captain just gives him and Toye an reprimand and sends them on.  
   The rest of the company is more enthused. Babe accepts the slaps on the back and terrible jokes with good grace – he’s happy to see the fellas, he really is – but there’s only one face he’s looking for.  
   At first, Gene won’t meet his eye. He’s busy inspecting Toye’s wound, murmuring something to him as he turns his wrist to look at each side. Babe can’t help but feel a pang of disappointment. He’s not sure what he expected, but definitely not this cold indifference. When Gene gives him the _‘follow’_ look, it’s not quite the same as he remembers.  
   They walk for a long time, Babe struggling to keep up on his wounded leg. Moving further and further away from the company’s position, the fog pushing closer with every step. Babe wants to say something, but he can’t think what –  
   Gene wheels on him. “What the hell are you doin’ here? Huh?”  
   The suddenness and ferocity of the outburst stun Babe. His mouth opens noiselessly.  
   “Why’d you come back? Why didn’t you just stay in the aid station? You could’a – you could’a been safe!”  
   “Gene I – I was worried about you.” Babe stammers.  
   “Oh, so now I gotta worry about you? They would’a sent you to some hospital, away from all this. You could’a been safe the rest of the whole goddamn war. Why couldn’t you just stay, huh?”  
   “How could I, Gene?” Angry tears spring unbidden to Babe’s eyes. “How could I stay, knowin’ you were out here? What if something happened to you? You know I’d be the last to fuckin’ know. You could be hit, and I – I might not even find out until – until – until I got home and you weren’t there.” His face feels hot, throat tight. His leg throbs painfully. “How could I live with myself, if I let that happen?”  
   Gene is silent. Babe wipes his eyes roughly on his sleeve.  
   “You know,” A bitter laugh escapes his lips. “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”  
   Babe turns on his heel and limps away, leaving the medic motionless in the snow.

   “You been cryin’, Babe?”  
   “No.”  
   “You’re a bad liar.” Spina hands him a cup of coffee, which he accepts gratefully. Gin gets old pretty fast. “What’s up?”  
   “You ever had Gene yell at you?”  
   “Ah.” There’s the smallest of hesitations, and Babe knows Spina’s remembering what he saw, that morning in the forest. But evidently – to Babe’s relief – he decides it doesn’t change anything. “I feel for you.”  
   Babe eyes still feel uncomfortably hot. He presses his hands to them, hoping his frozen fingers will soothe the stinging. “He’s mad I came back. He says I should’a stayed at the aid station.”  
   “Well in my professional medical opinion, he’s right. Your leg’s pretty bad.”  
   “No, it’s not.”  
   “Give it up Babe, you can’t lie for shit.”  
   “Fine.” Babe grumbles. “It hurts like a sonuvabitch.”  
    He sips the coffee, savouring the bitter warmth. “But I was there more’n a week, I was goin’ out of my mind. You’ve been there, you know what it’s like. It’s fuckin’ grim.”  
   “You got that right.” Spina digs around inside his jacket as he talks. “I reckon’ they do it on purpose, you know, to stop malingering and all that.”  
   “Maybe.”  
   Spina produces a crumpled pack of smokes, offering one to Babe.  
   “How long you been hidin’ those?”  
   “Long enough. Seems as good occasion as any to bring ‘em out.”  
   He holds out his lighter, the flame licking the end of Babe’s cigarette until it glows, before lighting his own.  
   “I’m glad you’re back.” He says. “And so’s Gene, even if he won’t admit it. He pined for you, you know.”  
   “Yeah?”  
   “Yeah.”

\---

   The first shell hits only feet away from their fox-hole. Babe is jarred to his bones – the last shell he heard was over a week ago, and it seems as distant and surreal as his first day of school. Huddled low under his helmet, face barely visible between its rim and his scarf, Spina seems unfazed. Babe crouches, tense. Any moment he’s expecting to hear the cry of _‘medic!’_ , to see Gene leave his hole without a moment’s hesitation, go sprinting past out there in the open with nothing to protect him. Babe can’t bear the thought of something happening to him while they aren’t speaking. _This is worse than the fuckin’ aid station_. He feels sick. The cry never comes.  
   Gene seeks him out when the second round of shelling stops, a pale flush creeping across his cheeks and nose. Babe wonders if he was thinking the same thoughts he was.  
   “Come on, I need to look at that leg.” He says. Curt, but not harsh.  
   The white silence of the forest has become something of a home for Babe, more so than any fox-hole. There’s a comfort in the familiar lines of the trees, a canopy unmarred by tree-bursts, the soft shine of sunlight on snow. He wonders, not for the first time, how something as ugly as war could hide somewhere so beautiful.  
   He bites his lip as Gene peels away the bandages. Familiar, too, is the feeling of gauze pulling at ruined skin; far too familiar for Babe’s liking. But Gene’s hands are gentle, as always.  
   “Are you ever gonna forgive me for comin’ back?”  
   “No.” Gene redresses the wound expertly, securing the bandage firmly with a metal clip. Fingers lingering only a fraction longer than they need to. “Are you ever gonna forgive me for wishin’ you’d stayed?”  
   “No.” Eyes closed, Babe smiles faintly despite himself. “Glad we came to this understanding.”  
   A hand finds his chin, lifting his face up and into Gene’s kiss.  
   “Me too.”


	9. Chapter 9

   General Patton breaks the encirclement and rescues them – _Like we fuckin’ needed to be rescued_ , Babe thinks, and he’s not the only one – but the Bois Jacques remains home. The forest needs to be cleared, an attack on the German position made. The Thousand Yard Attack, the men take to calling it, a thousand yards through dense and icy woods, following an old logging track to their right. The effort of trudging through the snow leaves them puffing and sweaty, but if they stop, their sweat freezes, chilling them to the bone. Artillery whistles overhead.  
   Hoobler shoots a German on horseback, and when they dig in for the night, the dead kraut’s Luger goes off in Hoob’s pocket. Afterwards Babe finds Gene covered in blood and defeat, and the only thing he can do is wrap the medic in his arms, and together they shiver in their tiny fox-hole until the sun comes up.  
The order is given to return to their old position. To their disgust, they find that the shitheads from 1st Battalion have left a present in each of their holes. But they’ve also left behind something far worse: German 170s, zeroed in on their position. The orders remain the same – hold the line.  
   They hold the line. They clear the woods west of Foy. Then they clear the woods east of Foy. They endure shelling after shelling after shelling, and all the while the snow continues to fall.  
   Smokey takes a bullet right through him, shoulder to shoulder. He survives, but he might never walk again. Welsh is _casevac_ ed, too; shrapnel in the leg – and Easy's count of good officers dwindles by one. Gene returns with a dead look in his eyes and a blue kerchief clutched in his fingers and tells Babe Bastogne has been bombed.  
   Toye, who absconded with him from the aid station; Guarnere, who took him under his wing all the way back in Aldbourne; both are hit. Both lose a leg, both are headed back to England and then on to the States. The war is over for them. The war is over, too, for Muck and Penkala – friendly, teasing men Babe wishes he had known better. They are simply gone, obliterated by a single direct hit, and it’s Gene’s job to look even though he knows there’ll be nothing to see.  
   After that it’s Foy itself, where Babe thinks the sight of Spears running down the hill to relieve Dike is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life. Then it’s Noville, and then on to Rachamps, where they rest in a convent after taking the town, and an exhausted Gene tells Babe about treating a slashed throat while the nuns and their choir fill the hall with music.

   In the morning, word is passed down – there’s to be a truck ride to Alsace. A long one.  
   The company is in high spirits; they’re mostly dry, their bellies are full, and everyone’s had a good night’s sleep – everyone except Gene. Babe stirred during the night to find him awake, watching over any wounded, occasionally exchanging a few words with the men on picket, brooding. Babe wonders if he slept at all.  
   The convoy moves so slowly Gene has no trouble moving from truck to truck, making rounds like a doctor in a hospital ward. He takes the hand Babe offers him, vaulting up to sit beside him with the rest of 1st platoon.  
   “What’s news?”  
   “Garcia’s wisdom teeth are comin’ through, poor kid. Cobb has a stomach-ache. I keep tellin’ him it ain’t, but he’s got it in his head it’s appendicitis and nothin’ I say’ll convince him otherwise.”  
   “Well he needn’t worry if it is, right Doc?” Martin sits opposite them, nursing a cigarette and a sly chuckle.  
   Gene smiles a half smile, as though trying to keep a straight face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He says. Babe looks from one to the other, confused.  
   “No? I’m sure Sobel would have something different to say.”  
   “Hey now, I wouldn’t know anythin’ about that.” Gene suppresses a laugh, barely. “Maybe you should ask Spina.”  
   “What the hell are you two talking about?”  
   “Medic training exercise.” Martin says. “Sobel was playing at being a casualty. They doped him up for real, cut him open, swirled his insides around a little, and sewed him up again. He never found out who did it.”  
   “I’d never do a thing like that.” Gene hides his mouth with a hand, cheeks turning pink from the effort of containing his laughter. “But, you know, if a man were to jus’ happen to stand where he could see if anyone was comin’, well, ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.”  
   “I thought you didn’t know anything about it?”  
   Gene just laughs, and refuses to say anything more. Babe shakes his head, bemused.  
Ruined buildings give way to expanses of snow covered fields, small homes and farmsteads dotted here and there in the distance. The cold air rushes over Babe’s face, bracing, and he feels a strange sense of hope. Like maybe he might survive the war after all. Like maybe there’s some kind of future, for him and Gene.  
   Babe feels a weight on his shoulder and realises Gene’s fallen asleep. Always the last to sleep and the first to rise, Babe’s not sure he’s ever seen the medic asleep before. He looks different – all the tenseness and worry is wiped from his face, brow unfurrowed, jaw relaxed. Babe is struck by just how young he looks. He sneaks a hand around Gene’s waist, against the side of the truck where no-one can see, and nestles in. Martin gives them a look, a sort of half-smile, and the snow covered fields glisten in the morning light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realise I've played with the timelines a whole bunch, but let's be real, you didn't come here for the historical accuracy. I also drew on the book a lot. The slashed throat is real - a bloke named Sergeant Hale. He survived though, Gene and Liebgott patched him up good. The appendectomy caper really happened, too, although no-one seemed to know, or want to tell, who did it (I am 600% sure Spina had a hand in it though).
> 
> Casevac is short for casualty evacuation. Picket is another term for watch or sentry duty.


	10. Chapter 10

   Hagenau is knee deep in mud and ice, with streets strewn with the debris of constant artillery bombardment and quarters that threaten to fall apart with each impact. Once, Babe would have called it hell, but after Bastogne, it’s bliss.  
   For a few days, they have it good. A roof over their heads, indoor plumbing, more food than they could ever eat and plenty of time to eat it in. So it’s all the more painful when Webster trudges into their midst, trailing a new platoon leader fresh out of West Point, and informs them there’s to be a patrol. Even with Webster – who has returned from months in the hospital, instantly setting Liebgott on edge – 1st platoon is pitifully under strength, and yet still they are the ones chosen. Babe rubs his face with both hands and hopes he’ll make it through the night.

\---

   On a dusty table in a filthy basement, Jackson screams, and grenade fragments swirl around inside his brain. His own grenade. Webster murmurs to him, trying to calm him, but he kicks and thrashes so violently it takes four men to hold him down. The kraut prisoners shout unintelligibly at Babe; Babe shouts back. Skin flushed, face hot, hands balling into fists, he feels ready to punch someone.  
   Large hands pull him roughly back. Jones. The young officer is stronger than he looks.  
   Fuming, Babe watches the scene unfold with gritted teeth. He’s powerless – there’s nothing he can do to help Jackson, and as much as he wants to hit one of the krauts he knows, deep down, that none of this is their fault.  
   The room quiets abruptly – Gene has that effect on people. The calm is short lived, though, and Jackson begins to kick again even as Babe tries to lift him onto a stretcher.  
   The kid sobs pathetically, the same words over and over. _I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die._  
   Babe tries to tell him it’s ok, to take it easy, but he doesn’t know if Jackson can even hear him.  
   Something’s wrong. Jackson starts screaming again, and after a signal from Gene they lay the stretcher down. Gene holds him, but it’s no use. Jackson gurgles once and is still.  
Gene takes his helmet off, and when he looks at Babe, there’s no anger or sadness in his eyes, just exhaustion. _Eugene_. Babe thinks. _Jackson was a Eugene, too_.  
   Martin lays a blanket over the boy’s face.

   The morning dawns bright and cold, and Babe wakes with aching limbs to find Gene sitting on the floor next to his bunk, watching him.  
   “Jesus. How long have you been there?”  
   Gene shrugs. “A while.”  
   Babe pushes himself upright and fumbles around for his boots. Gene watches him silently as he pulls the laces tight and does his blousing – a quirk of uniform that he once wore proudly, but now just finds annoying. He stands and, without a word, takes Gene’s hand and pulls him to his feet. He leads the medic past sleeping soldiers, down creaking flights of stairs and dim hallways, to a disused back room on the ground floor. The room is bereft of any furniture, any clue of its original purpose, but the window where the sunlight streams in looks out onto nothing but a wooden fence, and the door locks.  
   At first, they just hold each other. Each absorbing the other’s warmth, breathing the other’s scent. Slowly, Babe traces Gene’s ear with his lips, presses kisses down his neck. Gene sighs softly, hands working their way through layers of clothing to rest against Babe’s skin. Gene’s lips part easily under his own.  
   There’s a steady popping as Gene opens the snaps on his jacket, one by one. Babe shrugs the jacket off awkwardly and returns the favour. Their shirts quickly follow.  
   He runs his fingers over Gene’s skin, tracing the curves and hollows, feeling the muscle dancing just under the surface. Small under his layers of uniform and gear, huddled against the cold, it’s easy for Babe to forget how strong Gene is. Dulled only a little by the weeks in Bastogne, this is a man who can do forty push-ups without tiring, run up a mountain and back in fifty minutes. Sprint from fox-hole to fox-hole and still be breathing evenly enough afterwards to do his work. Babe’s strong enough, but his own training was basic in every sense of the word. He’s still for a moment, just taking Gene in.  
   Gene smiles, kissing Babe softly. “I wanna try something.” He says.  
   Babe gasps involuntarily as Gene’s fingers go to work on the buttons of his fly, a gasp cut short by Gene’s mouth coming down hard on his own. Heat pools low in his stomach, body responding to Gene’s touch. Gene's teeth graze his neck, working steadily downwards. He drops to his knees.  
   “Gene…”  
   Babe nearly loses his footing when Gene’s mouth closes around him, hand moving to the wall to steady himself. He fights to keep quiet, although keeping his breathing even is a lost cause. His other hand finds its way into Gene’s hair of its own accord.  
   He tenses, pressure building in his chest in answer to Gene’s steadily quickening rhythm. A soft moan escapes before he can choke it back, and Gene’s fingers trace his hip, digging in. His nails scrabble at the plaster.  
   The release rocks his entire body, leaving him knees weak and gasping.  
   Gene gets to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Babe can’t help but laugh at the look of distaste on his face. After a moment Gene laughs too.  
   Babe pulls him close. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t kiss you.”  
   Gene smiles, burying his face in Babe’s neck. Footsteps thump somewhere above them; the sounds of the rest of the platoon waking up. Babe kisses Gene lightly on the cheek.  
   “Time to get back to work.”

   Winters sends out another warning order. HQ thought they did such a good job with the last patrol that they want them to do it all over again.  
   The men wait in uneasy silence for Winters to begin the briefing, fidget uncomfortably as he relates the whens, wheres and hows, strain to see as he points out their target on the map.  
   “I want you all to get a full night’s sleep tonight.” He tells them.  
   A few brows furrow, a few confused looks are exchanged.  
   “Which means in the morning, you’ll report to me that you made it across the river, into German lines, but were unable to secure any live prisoners.”  
   Winters’ full meaning begins to sink in. The troops turn to each other, murmuring. _Did he just say what I think he said?_  
   “Understand?”  
   Babe could kiss him.  
   “Look sharp for tomorrow. We’re moving off the line.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning order is a memo that there's going to be a briefing at a certain time.


	11. Chapter 11

   The Germans aren’t what Babe expected. They’re not monsters, not cruel or cunning or dishonest, nor even selfish or impolite. Apart from kicking up a fuss when their homes are commandeered – and rightly so, Babe guesses – the Easy men find the Germans to be friendly and kind; robust, hard-working people. And there’s the girls. Smiling, plump girls with blonde hair and red cheeks, who laugh as the Americans shower them with cigarettes and chocolate behind garden walls and barns. It is, as Luz puts it, ‘good fraternizing territory’.  
   But it’s the quarters that capture Babe the most. They’re put up in good, wholesome German homes, with electricity and running water, quilts on the beds, working stoves. You can walk or hitch a ride back – the work, too, is easy; outposts and vehicle checkpoints, perhaps the odd patrol – come in the door, leave your rifle and raincoat on the hat rack, join the squad at the kitchen table, smoke and play cards. Like family. Like home.  
   Gene is quartered with HQ platoon, which to Babe’s eternal frustration is always on the opposite side of whatever town or village they’re occupying.  
   Not that that stops them.

   It’s finally warming up, and Babe unwinds his scarf without thinking.  
   Liebgott whistles. “She have a sister, Babe?”  
   He’d forgotten about the hickey. He likes the mottled bruise, the way it marks him as Gene’s and Gene’s alone - but even so, he flushes, embarrassed.  
   Engines rumble to life one by one, ready to resume their slow parade through what seems like every village in Europe. Babe takes the hand Liebgott offers him, springing up onto the bed of the truck.  
   “You should take me with you next time, maybe you can teach me a few tricks.”  
   “Oh yeah, and what’s in it for me?”  
   Someone starts a rousing chorus of Blood Upon the Risers. Even Gene is smiling and singing, one truck behind in the convoy – although Babe notices he keeps quiet at the verse about the medics. He realises for the first time how absurd the verse is, how morbid, and thinks it’s no wonder it makes Gene uncomfortable. But Gene looks happy, and there is no-one shouting at him or shooting at him or bleeding on him, so Babe is happy too.

\---

   The first thing that hits him is the smell, a stench he notices nearly a mile away. The smell of rotting meat.  
   The camp is surreal, beyond belief. Dozens of skeletons in striped pyjamas shamble at them, tugging at their clothes, pleading silently. More still lie on the ground, unmoving. He feels frozen, unable to process the sheer horror of what he sees. All he can think is, _Jesus fucking Christ_. The bodies have numbers tattooed down their arms. Branded. Like cattle.  
   Gene takes charge immediately, directing this medic here and that medic there. His rank is no higher than their own, but they obey him without question.  
Babe wishes he was as on top of things. He and Malarkey wander the camp, handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses. They give out water, any rations they have in their webbing, but they’re lost. Winters opens a railroad car and finds it full of corpses.

   That night, after they’ve commandeer the town’s supply of cheese and bread only to have the surgeon general stop them, after Liebgott's announced there's no more food – he’d announced it, and then the cocky, smiling cabbie from ‘Frisco had slumped in the back of the truck and cried – after they’ve closed the gates once more on the distraught prisoners, Babe finds his way to HQ platoon.  
   Gene has a room all to himself at the top of the building. When he opens the door, Babe steps through it and into his arms without a word. They stand like that for a long time, the door swinging softly shut behind them. Babe clings to Gene, to the warmth and life of him, listening to his heart beat and feeling his chest move with every breath.  
Off come their jackets, filthy and foul-smelling, Gene’s caked with blood as well as grime. Their boots and trousers follow. In undershirts and shorts, they climb into the narrow bed, Gene’s head against Babe’s chest, legs intertwined. Neither says a word – what is there to say? Exhausted, they sleep.  
   In the morning, Malarkey finds him to ask where he’s been. Babe tells him the truth, or near enough, but he just shrugs and doesn’t press it.  
   Instead, he tells Babe the news:  
   Hitler’s dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I managed to get obsessed with Justified and marathonned four seasons instead of writing (it has about 60% of the HBO War cast in it can you blame me)


	12. Chapter 12

   The war should be over, but it isn’t. The Nazi brass hide out in the hills and try their hand at guerrilla warfare, and half a world away the Japanese are still shooting Marines in the stinking heat. From Babe’s point of view, however, things are looking pretty good. Berchtesgaden is stunning; full of souvenirs to be pocketed, cigars to be smoked, cars to be taken for joyrides. The houses have leather lounge suites and velvet drapes. The sun shines.  
   Gene is still quartered with HQ company, but if he slips away to meet Babe in one of the hundreds of beautiful, empty houses, he’s not missed.  
   Babe waits for him in the library. The shelves are thick with dust, and when he pulls out a book, the pages aren’t cut. He shakes his head, marvelling.  
   A soft _‘hey’_ makes him turn.  
   Gene smiles. “Readin’ up?”  
   “Can you believe this shit? Some of these haven’t been touched in years. Maybe not ever.” Babe puts the book back into the empty space on the shelf.  
   Strong hands slide into place around his waist, lips grazing the back of his neck. “I didn’t come here to read.” Gene murmurs.  
   Babe turns to face him, covering the other man’s mouth with his own, fingers moving to the snaps of his jacket. “Neither did I.”  
   He slows when he comes to the undershirt, savouring the electricity of Gene’s skin as he pushes the t-shirt upwards. Eventually, it joins their shirts and jackets on the floor.  
   Babe runs his hands over Gene’s chest, presses kisses across his collarbone, wanting to explore every inch of him. His hand skitters over a dent, a ripple in the skin at Gene’s shoulder.  
   Babe frowns, fingers tracing the white scar. “When’d you get this?”  
   Gene shifts uncomfortably, refusing to meet Babe’s eye. “Bastogne.”  
   “ _What?_ When?”  
   “While you were at the aid station.”  
   “You’re fuckin’ kidding me.”  
   Gene is silent.  
   “And you didn’t think to _tell me?_ ”  
   An angry flush spreads across his skin. He feels betrayed.  
   “So all the time you were mad at me for bein’ worried about you, you were nursin’ a fucking bullet wound under your jacket? And you didn’t see anything wrong with that? Huh?”  
   “It was clean, I patched it up. Seein’ a medic injured, you know what that does to morale. I didn’t tell anybody.”  
   “That’s _bullshit_ , Gene. I’m not anybody.”  
   Gene doesn’t say anything, still unable to meet Babe’s eye – which just makes Babe even angrier. He snatches his clothes up from the floor, pulling his undershirt roughly over his head and shrugging into his jacket.  
   He flings Gene’s shirt at him on his way out. “Maybe you should put your goddamn clothes back on, you might catch a cold.”  
   The rattle of the slammed door showers Gene in fine particles of dust.

   Babe sits on a fence a few houses down and around a corner, sulking – there’s no other word for it, if he’s being honest with himself. He tries to think back to Bastogne. Gene was always gentle, careful of Babe’s wounds, but Babe can’t say the same. He must have hurt Gene with his eager, impatient hands, but he never flinched, not once. Babe suddenly feels overwhelmed with guilt. Childish. He realises he’s wearing Gene’s undershirt in place of his own.  
   A gunshot echoes over the muddy cobblestones.  
   Babe leaps to his feet, heart in his throat, already jumping to the worst conclusions. He runs, faster than he ever did during a shelling, dreading what he might find when he reaches the figurative foxhole.  
   The door of the house stands open. When Babe steps through it, he finds the body of a kraut officer, spread-eagled on the living room floor. Two soldiers Babe doesn’t know stare down at it disinterestedly. At the far end of the room there’s a knot of people, milling about uncomfortably and talking in hushed voices. And at the centre, leaning unsteadily against a desk, is Gene.  
   Relief floods through Babe, but one look at Gene’s face sets the worry coiling in his gut again. He pushes roughly through the crowd.  
   “Jesus, what the hell happened? Are you okay?”  
   Gene is deathly pale, flecks of blood standing out vividly against the white skin, haunted eyes stabbing right through Babe. When he speaks, it’s little more than a whisper.  
   “I killed him, Babe.”  
   “God, Gene. I’m sure it wasn’t your fault, you –”  
   “No, you don’t understand.” He swallows. “I – I shot him.”  
   “Jesus.”  
   “He came at me and I just – I –” He gestures weakly, a Luger Babe hadn’t noticed still clutched in his fingers. “I found this. I was goin’ to give it to you. To say sorry.”  
   “Christ, Gene….”  
   Babe takes the Luger from him and places it gently on the desk. He knows the eyes of half the company are on him, but he can’t seem to care – he wraps his arms around Gene and holds him until he stops shaking.  
   Speirs, appearing unnoticed at the door, breaks the silence.  
   “The Germans have surrendered.” He announces, briefly raising a bottle of schnapps in their direction. “Happy VE Day, boys.”


	13. Chapter 13

   Babe is woken by a knock. At first, his sleepy brain doesn’t quite process the sound. He rolls over to face the window, staring out at the afternoon sun playing on the lake and the mountains beyond.  
   The knock comes again. A soft _‘Babe?’_  
   The creaking of the door finally pulls Babe fully conscious.  
   “Gene?” He takes in the webbing, the pack slung over a shoulder. “What are you doing here?”  
   “Since we’re not fightin’ anymore, all the platoons are mixin’ in together. Includin’ HQ platoon. And I –” Gene hovers in the doorway, neither out nor in. “I was hopin’ there might be a spare bed in here.”  
   “Well sure, there’s a spare bed.” Babe gestures across the room, where an iron frame and mattress matching his own are pushed against the wall. “But you really think I’m gonna let you sleep so far away? I mean, that’s gotta be a whole five feet! Uh-uh.”  
   Gene smiles, dropping his gear and closing the door behind him. He closes the gap between them in a few short steps, taking Babe’s face in his hands and kissing him, hard.  
   “I’m goin’ crazy with HQ platoon. Only Spina for company…”  
   Babe laughs, pulling Gene down onto the bed, hands with minds of their own beginning to relieve him of his clothes.  
   Babe’s already hard, and Gene knows it, teasing him with gentle bites down his neck, sliding his shirt off inch by slow inch. He stops abrubtly.  
   “Hold on, I gotta take my boots off.” A sly smile creeps across Gene’s face.  
   Babe groans with frustration as Gene takes his sweet time, unthreading each lace with the concentration and care of someone diffusing a bomb. _“Hurry up.”_  
   “I’m hurryin’.”  
   “No you’re not.”  
   “I am, I swear.”  
   “I hate you.”  
   “No, you don’t.”  
   Babe moves to kneel behind Gene, kissing his neck and snaking a hand down the front of his trousers.  
   “That ain’t gonna make me move any quicker.”  
   “I was hopin’ it might make you forget the boots entirely.”  
   The boots are finally kicked off, and Gene catches Babe off guard by whirling around to pin him to the bed.  
   “I thought you said it wasn’t gonna make you –”  
   The end of his sentence is cut short by Gene’s mouth stopping his own. Clumsily, he tugs down Gene’s trousers and shorts, kicking them off the edge of the bed to crumple on the floor.  
   Babe pushes Gene to the side, rolling to reverse their positions. It’s his turn to tease. He slips a hand between them, his touch feather-light, and smiles at the moan it draws from Gene.  
   Babe kisses Gene’s throat as his fingers drift lazily, savouring the vibrations Gene’s gasps make and the way he squirms beneath him.  
  _“J'ai envie de toi.”_ He breathes, hands fluttering against Babe’s hips. _“J'ai besoin de toi.”_  
   Babe can’t understand him, but he doesn’t need to.

   There’s still a war on, even though it might not seem so. Speirs confirms what they’ve all suspected for some time – Easy company will be redeployed to the pacific.  
   On a boat across the north atlantic, men grumbled about being sent to France. Hell, Babe may have even joined in, dreaming of pristine beaches and sunshine, native girls with beautiful brown skin who would laugh at him, unfazed by the language barrier. But now he knows better. At least in Europe you have less chance of getting malaria.  
   So a jump into the pacific hangs over them all like the sword of Damocles, but if over a year of combat has taught them anything, it’s how to put things out of your mind. Some things are harder than others – the way Julian clutched his throat as his blood flowed out onto the snow; the skeletal hands that reached for him in the internment camp; the look in the eyes of the replacement that shot Grant as they beat him within an inch of his life – but all of it is filtered out eventually, replaced by more pressing matters, and by the easy camaraderie of the men around you.  
   The only time Babe thinks of the pacific is at night, blankets tangled around his legs and a sleepy and satisfied Gene in his arms. The last few weeks, Germany and Berchtesgaden and Austria, it’s possibly the happiest he’s ever been. Combat, and all the horror and adrenalin and fear that go with it – fear not for yourself, but for your friends. For Gene – are a now only a memory, and one that he’s not sure he could bear to relive. But you try to put a wall in your mind.

\---

   Babe sits back and lets the sun warm his skin and dry his hair. The lake was fucking freezing, but it felt good, clean and easy and free. Gene said it reminded him of his childhood, out on the Bayou. He’s never been to Louisiana, but he imagines going, with Gene. Gene would tell him what all the French town names mean, and they’d kiss in the shadow of his parents’ house. It’s a good daydream.  
   Babe looks up idly at the game. He’s never been one for baseball, though not for lack of coordination – dancing was always where his talent lay, not sport – but Gene makes it look easy. Babe watches the way he swings, the way he slides into home, all strength and grace, and smiles.  
   Spiers calls a school circle. Winters and Nix stand at the head, Nixon’s aviators flashing in the sun.  
   “Listen up, I’ve got some news.” Winters announces, eyes scanning the company, expression unreadable. “This morning, President Truman received the unconditional surrender from the Japanese.”  
   That’s it. It’s over.  
   They’re going home.


	14. Chapter 14

   The States feel like a foreign country.  
   South Philly isn’t home any more, and Babe’s parents’ house hasn’t been home for a long time. His apartment is gone. It’s not hard to get a new one, and he only has to stay with his parents a few days, but the change sets him even further adrift. He’s at a loss, restless. His old job at the docks – which unlike his apartment, was still there waiting for him – doesn’t hold the same appeal it once did. South Philly isn’t home. Home is a foxhole, surrounded by Easy men – a place now gone forever.  
   In his apartment, the telephone stares him down. He’s lost count of the amount of times he’s picked it up, a sick feeling in his chest and Gene’s number burning on his fingertips, only to place it gently back in the cradle. Doubts wash over him, like waves over the bow of a ship, every time he thinks of Gene. What they had – the word, _had_ , past tense; it comes without thought, and feels like a knife in the belly – what exactly was it they had? Was it just a product of isolation, circumstance? Like goddamn _prison sex?_  
   Babe told Gene he loved him. And Gene told Babe he loved him too, but he was losing blood by the quart and on the brink of unconsciousness, then.

   He runs into Guarnere by complete chance, although the fact that they live mere blocks from each other means it was probably bound to happen sooner or later. He’s throwing dice in an alley, but at the sight of Babe he abandons his game, stuffing his winnings into his pockets before pulling Babe into a bone-crushing hug.  
   “How you been, Babe? I heard you guys were back, been gettin’ letters faster’n I can read ‘em!”  
   “I been good, I been good. Yeah.” He lies. “How’s the leg?”  
   “They won’t let me get out on crutches, can you believe that? Got me saddled with this goddamn wooden thing –” he raps on his calf with his knuckles, as if to prove to Babe that it is indeed made of wood. “– like a fuckin’ peg leg. Maybe I should take to the high seas. Ha!”  
   Babe smiles, relieved to find Guarnere the same as he ever was. A joke that once would have made him shake his head is now something to be clung to, like a life preserver.  
   “Come on Babe, it’s past five – time for a drink. The broads’ll be wonderin’ where I am. Ha!”  
   Babe allows himself to be steered through the slowly darkening streets, Guarnere wobbling only slightly on his new leg, to a bar where the musty air envelopes him and beer after beer is pressed into his hand by grateful 4Fs and Essential Service types. The alcohol warms him, rekindles a laughter in him, until he finds himself roaring at Guarnere’s recounting of he and Toye toppling off a pier together and getting their wheelchairs hopelessly stuck in the sand. And he thinks maybe South Philly could be home again, after all.  
   But then Babe recognises the too-familiar set of Gene’s shoulders in a stranger at the bar, and suddenly he’s not nearly as drunk as he wants to be.  
   “Hey, Babe. Hey.” Guarnere’s voice pulls him out of his depressive reverie. Babe hadn’t even noticed he’d gone. “I got someone I want to you to meet.”  
   Red-lipped and rosy-cheeked, the girl on Bill’s arm offers a hand. “Mary.” She says. Babe shakes the hand. Guarnere winks and is gone.  
   “So where did you fight?” Mary sinks into the chair next to his own, setting her drink – a sherry – on the table between them.  
   “Europe. Holland, Belgium, Germany. Same as Bill.”  
   “So you’re a paratrooper, too?”  
   “Yes Ma’am.”  
   “I can’t imagine jumping out of a plane like that. Must be terrifying.”  
   “Only the first jump.”  
   “Maybe I’ll have to try it sometime.”  
   Red lips smile. A hand slides slowly up his thigh.

   The sliver of light coming through the curtains burns when his eyes finally drift open. He groans involuntarily. His head throbs, and strangely, so does his leg, his souvenir of Bastogne. He remembers the way Gene’s hands dressed the wound, frozen fingers somehow warm and gentle against his skin, and thinks it must be some kind of sign. Not that he needs a sign – despite the searing hangover, his thoughts are clear for the first time since he stepped off the train at 30th Street Station. He kicks the sheets away and stands up, swaying for a moment with the vertigo of being a whole six feet from the ground. He stands still until he’s sure he’s not going to vomit, before moving to collect his clothes, scattered in improbable places. His tie seems to be lost forever, but apart from that the reflection in the bathroom mirror appears to be at least semi-respectable. He splashes his face with cold water from the tap.  
   On his way out he pauses. Mary’s chest moves up and down with an even rhythm under a tangle of sheets, lipstick-smudged lips slightly parted. Guiltily, he retrieves a notepad from beside the telephone and leaves it on her kitchen table, the note scrawled across it simply reading _‘sorry’._

   Gene picks up on the third ring. For a moment Babe doesn’t say anything, just drinks in the small sounds from the other end.  
   “Gene.”  
   “Babe?” A pause. “You changed your number. I tried to call you.”  
   “I – _shit_. Sorry. I moved house.”  
   They both wait, uncomfortably, for the other to break the silence.  
   Gene finally does. “Come to Baton Rouge.”  
   “Okay.”  
   And it’s as easy as that.

   It’s a long drive, but scenic. Babe follows the coast, stopping every so often to eat terrible road food and stare at the waves. To let the empty, restless feeling wash away with the tide.  
   Gene’s house is small and sweet, trees casting dappled light over the porch and over Gene’s face when he answers the door. The familiar lines of his face seem somehow different, and it takes a moment for Babe to realise why – the tiredness and worry is wiped away, shed with the blood-soaked uniform . Babe stands awkwardly on the threshold, taking in this new face, wondering if his own is just as changed.  
   But then Gene moves in to kiss him, and he’s home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reading back I've realised I went a bit overboard with the ocean metaphors oops (I also just realised the pun, I didn't intend to make it but now that I have I'll totally own it)


	15. Chapter 15

   Some nights, Babe wakes to the chirping of crickets and the slow, steady ticking of the clock on the bedside table. Drenched in sweat but somehow shivering, images swim before his eyes in the darkness – Julian, writhing in the snow, life pumping out steadily past twisted windpipe and cartilage. Figures with skeletal hands reaching for him, their hollow eye-sockets imploring him, yellow stars of David sewn on their chests. Jackson, sobbing.  
   Other nights, he wakes to an empty bed and the creaking of floorboards, following the sounds to catch Gene barefoot in the garden, chasing after a call of ‘ _medic!_ ’ only he can hear.  
   But both are soothed by the other’s touch and voice, and in the warm light of the morning it’s like nothing ever happened.  
   Babe surprises himself with how easily he falls into the routine of Gene’s life. He gets a job as a clerk at a whisky distillery, thinking fondly of Captain Nixon every time he has to go to the warehouse, and learns the names of the neighbours. Gene does the cooking – Babe can barely boil an egg; Gene uses spices Babe doesn’t even know the names of – and Babe always does the washing up. They kiss goodbye at the door when Gene leaves in the morning, and Babe tries not to let the concrete dust that covers Gene’s work clothes transfer onto his own. It’s everything Babe never knew he wanted.

   Spina and Guarnere write to him most, each of their escapades in South Philly unwittingly duplicated in their letters, but he’s gotten at least one letter from everyone in the company. Everyone except Talbert, who seems to have dropped off the face of the earth – rumour has it he’s become some kind of wild mountain man. Babe is reading these letters in the kitchen when Gene pulls up a chair, surprising him by taking the seat next to him and not his accustomed place across the table.  
   “I got you something.” He says.  
   Babe looks up from a letter from Shifty. “Is it another set of cufflinks? You know I got a million of those already.”  
   “It ain’t cufflinks.”  
   Gene seems fidgety and nervous, and Babe frowns at this departure from his usual, calm demeanour. He fishes a tiny paper bag from the inside pocket of his jacket and sets it gingerly on the table.  
   “I jus’ thought – I – I mean –” He’s searching for words. Babe studies him. “If you want it.”  
   Curious, Babe picks at the tape holding the bag closed. Inside is a small velvet box, and inside the box is – a ring. A plain gold band nestled into the fabric. When the light catches it, he makes out ‘ _l'éternité_ ' engraved on the inside.  
   Babe turns the ring over in his fingers for a moment. A smile creeps across his face.  
   “Gene, are you proposing to me?”  
   “Can’t see any point proposin’ if we can’t get married, but –” he laughs a half laugh. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

\---

   They have the wedding – _ceremony_ , Babe has to keep reminding himself. _Ceremony_ – at Gene’s parents’ house, out on the Bayou. Gene’s family are some of the most wonderful people Babe’s ever met, even if they insist on ruffling his hair and calling him odd pet names that Gene translates – ‘little cabbage’ seems to be the favourite. But what Babe likes most about them is the way they accept him, unconditionally; accept him and Gene, together. Every one of them, from the oldest to the youngest, comes to see their Gene married.  
   Babe makes only three telephone calls. One – horrendously awkward – to Guarnere, and another – slightly less awkward, but only slightly – to Spina, and finally one to his younger sister. Grace can’t escape his family, although she sends him a sweet red kettle in the mail, but Guarnere hobbles up dutifully, punctual to the minute and with Spina in tow. Bill’s always-painful hug lifts a weight off his shoulders; with the blessing of those closest to him, the tenseness he’s been carrying, unnoticed, since he moved to Louisiana, simply evaporates. There’s still the rest of the company, the rest of his family, but – all in good time.  
   There’s no priest. No vows. Gene already wears the matching ring Babe bought, ‘ _forever_ ’ engraved on the inside. Everyone eats and drinks and laughs, and Babe watches them from under the heady buzz of a few too many glasses of punch and swells with love for them all. And he and Gene kiss in the shadow of his parents’ house, just like he’d imagined.


	16. Chapter 16

   Babe’s sister’s hair shines flaming in the sunlight as she stands on the porch, tiny suitcase at her feet and purse clutched nervously in front of her. A cab sidles away from the curb.  
   “Ed.” Her smile is watery and desperate. “Can I stay here? With you?”  
   “What?” Babe frowns, concern and curiosity mingling in his expression. “I – Sorry. Sure. What’s up?”  
   He waves her inside, reaching to pick up her suitcase. She lingers in the hall, unbuttoning her coat with unsteady hands.  
   “Grace. _What’s wrong?_ ”  
   She doesn’t answer, but as she shrugs off her coat and turns to hang it up, he catches it – the tightness of her skirt, the subtle but unmistakable curve of her swollen belly.  
   “Oh.”

   With a murmured word to each other in the hall, Babe sits Grace at the kitchen table while Gene sets about making coffee. She smiles when she notices him put the kettle on the stove; the red kettle, her wedding gift.  
   “I had to leave our folks.” she says, by way of apology. “I – Well, I guess I don’t have to explain why to you, of all people.”  
   Babe nods, leaning against the counter, one ankle crossed over the other. There’s only one real question to ask: “What are you gonna do?”  
   “I don’t know, Ed.” She sighs, taking the coffee Gene offers her and nursing it with both hands. “I thought about the orphanage, but – you remember Marlene, from school? She grew up in an orphanage. It’s no place to live. I guess I could get a job, a house, find a man if I can.” A bitter laugh escapes her lips. “What man would have me? But I just – I don’t know if I’m ready for that, Ed. I don’t know.”  
   Babe rubs his jaw silently. It pains him to see his little sister at sister at such a loss.  
   “We’ll work somethin’ out.” Gene says, and there’s a reassuring authority in his warm, Cajun tones. “Stay as long as you need.”

\---

   Gene is the one to hold back Grace’s hair when she vomits every morning, although Babe makes it up to him with kisses. Babe is content to watch her belly swell and her face start to glow, and to ruffle her hair as he marvels at the strange and amazing process of which every person on the planet is a result. Some days he finds it hard to believe that there’s a miniature life in there, even when Grace takes his hand and lays it across the skin to feel a tiny foot beat against his palm.  
   “Doesn’t that hurt?” he says, taking his hand away.  
   She shakes her head. “He likes you.”  
   She takes Gene’s hands instead, and Babe watches his face light up in a smile as Grace laughs and says, “But I think he likes Gene more.”  
   Babe retreats to the porch on the pretence of needing a cigarette. Watching the smoke curl up toward the veranda, he wonders how he could have been so oblivious. A wife and kids, a family; that was something he always took for granted, a possibility he didn’t even notice was disappearing with every minute spent with Gene – but he’s suddenly sure Gene was painfully aware. He remembers the way Gene played with his nieces and nephews at the wedding, swinging them up onto his shoulders and laughing. The thought of all Gene’s given up for him is overwhelming. He wipes a rough sleeve across his face.

   Gene’s already gone to bed when Babe finally makes his way inside. He undresses in the dark, and when he crawls under the covers Gene reaches for him almost instinctively.  
   “Somethin’ wrong?” He mumbles, curling his fingers into Babe’s hair.  
   He shakes his head against the pillow. If Gene knows he’s lying, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he presses a few sleepy kisses down Babe’s neck. His other hand stirs under the blankets, but Babe shifts away.  
   Gene sighs through his nose. “Tell me.”  
   Babe is quiet for a moment, letting Gene trace the shell of his ear with a thumb. “Did you ever want kids?”  
   Gene stills. “Why you wanna know that?”  
   Babe takes Gene’s hand and moves it from his face, suddenly suffocated by the contact.  
   “You know why.” He snaps. He takes a few deep breaths, making an effort not to take things out on Gene and hoping that when he speaks, his voice will be steady. It’s not. “It’s just – It kills me, Gene, to think I took somethin’ like that from you.”  
   Gene makes a soothing noise, and his fingers resume tracing Babe’s ear.  
   “Yeah. I always wanted kids. But –” He pulls Babe closer in the darkness. “I made a choice, Babe, that mornin’ you called and I asked you to come out to Louisiana. And I’ve never regretted it.” He kisses Babe’s eyelids, softly. “Never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introduced an oc, please don't crucify me! 
> 
> We're nearing the end, guys. The final chapter is waiting to be edited as we speak, ahhh


	17. Chapter 17

   Toccoa, Georgia. Where it all started.  
   Babe never was at Camp Toccoa, but he knows Easy was born there, and when Currahee Mountain comes into view in the moonlight Gene smiles to himself and murmurs, “Three miles up, three miles down.”  
   The letter from Luz inviting them down is tucked into the inside pocket of Babe’s jacket. Grace is fast asleep in the back seat, cheek pressed awkwardly against the window. He wakes her while Gene goes to the motel reception to collect the keys; she gives him a sleepy smile and rubs her eyes, forcibly reminding him of the family road trips of their youth. Weeks away from being an uncle, he feels more a big brother than ever.  
   His and Gene’s room is a mirror of Grace’s, and when Babe returns from carrying her overnight bag up the steps for her – the same tiny suitcase she first arrived with – he finds Gene sitting on the end of the bed. Babe sinks down next to him, lacing his fingers with Gene’s.  
   “Are we gonna…” he pauses a moment, wetting his lips with his tongue. “Are we gonna tell everyone?”  
   Gene smiles wanly, squeezing his hand slightly.  
   “I just – I mean, my own family…”  
   “Easy’s more than family, you know that.”  
   “I know.”  
   “Babe… I don’t wanna keep this secret anymore.”  
   Babe leans in close by way of answer, Gene’s lips soft and pliable under his own.

   Babe wakes with a sinking feeling despite Gene’s reassuring arms. He watches the light streaming through the windows, curtains rippling slightly in the breeze from a window he hadn’t realised they’d left open. It’s late, but Babe is glad not to have to kill time in the small town, slow dread settled in the pit of his stomach, before they head to the bar Luz has asked be opened early just for Easy.  
   Gene’s awake by the time he gets out of the shower, making coffee with the tiny electric kettle provided by the motel. Babe watches him – tearing open the instant coffee sachets with his teeth, like he used to do so often with sulfa packets – and hates himself for feeling so nervous when Gene is so calm.  
   “It’s gonna be fine.” He says, handing Babe one of the mugs.  
   Babe nods shakily, sipping the hot, bitter liquid. Gene rests his hand briefly on Babe’s waist before heading to the shower, his own coffee untouched on the bench.  
   Combing his hair at the dresser, Babe tries to guess who will be there, how they’ll react. He’s glad Spina and Guarnere are coming, and gladder still they already know. The two of them were always his closest friends in the company; a gang of three, the South Philly boys.  
   Babe looks at his ring, twisting it slightly with his other hand – but he can’t bring himself to slip it off his finger.  
   He realises Gene’s been watching him from the bathroom doorway, dressed but with his hair still glistening wetly.  
   “Are you ashamed of me?” he says, quietly.  
   “No! God no.” Babe lets his hand fall to his side, taking one last look at his reflection. “They can think what they fucking like, I guess.”  
   He tucks his cap into his belt. It looks wrong, khaki clashing with the light green checks of his shirt. “You ready?”

   “Married? When were you gonna tell me?” Babe curses silently to find that his ring is every bit as obvious as he’d feared, but even so, it’s good to see Luz – handshake firm and smile ready as ever. “This your lovely wife, then?”  
   “My sister, Grace.”  
   “Keepin’ it in the family, huh?” Luz winks. He kisses her on the hand and she blushes sweetly, although the look she sends him later tells him she’s made just as uncomfortable by the lack of a ring on her finger as he is by the presence of one on his. Luz quickly moves on to greet another arrival, leaving Babe free to beeline for the bar. He gets himself a beer, handing another to Gene, wishing he could have something stronger to steel himself. Most of the company has turned up – even the officers, save for Speirs – and everyone they speak to asks them the same questions: _married? Both of you? A letter every week for a year and you never thought to mention it?_ And less often, but still a perennial favourite, _so who’s the lucky lady?_  
   Each time, a flush creeps up his neck. He opens his mouth to answer only to find all his words have deserted him, and Gene, Gene who was so adamant they not be a secret anymore, Gene doesn’t say anything either.  
   In the end, it’s Guarnere’s lack of tact that saves him – “There ain’t no lady, knucklehead! They’re married to _each other_. Now tell me you didn’t see that comin’ and maybe I won’t feel like such a sucker, ‘cause I sure as hell didn’t see it…”  
   His voice fades out of Babe’s hearing, off on some tangent, and Babe releases the breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. There’s a few glances, a murmur or two, but people continue to talk and drink – the world continues to turn.  
   Gene’s fingers intertwine with his own. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”  
  Babe smiles. Still too self-conscious to risk a kiss, he traces a line down Gene’s jaw and neck, fingers lingering for just a moment. “No, it wasn’t.”  
   Grace joins them by the bar, bracing her hands behind her on the counter-top and breathing a little sigh of exertion.  
   “Some real interesting fellas here.” She says. “Reckon any of them’d be dumb enough to court a pregnant lady?”  
   “Maybe,” Babe laughs, “but you look too much like me.”  
   “Nah, you’re way prettier. I could try though.”  
   Babe catches his own name at the edge of his hearing and frowns, looking around for the source. It’s only when he hears Gene’s name as well that he’s able to pinpoint it.  
   “So _that’s_ what they were teaching ‘em while the rest of us were learning to fire a machine gun.” Laughter. “Glad they never picked me for a medic…”  
   Babe whirls around.  
   “Hey! What the _fuck_ did you just say?”  
   Lieb flashes him an innocent look, but he’s betrayed by the half smirk he sends Toye. Toye counters it with a frown, but Babe’s too incensed to notice.  
   “You wanna say it to my goddamn face, huh?”  
   “Say what?”  
   Babe’s fist connects with a satisfying crunch.  
   Several pairs of hands find his shirt, pulling him roughly back. He struggles, the look of shock on Lieb’s face somehow enraging him more than any smug smile.  
   “I took a fucking mortar for you!” he spits.  
   “Babe.” Gene’s voice cuts through the ringing in his ears, but he ignores it.  
   “I nearly died, asshole!”  
   “ _Ed_.”  
   The urgency of his sister’s voice finally reaches him. The grip on him slackens as the room turns with him, all eyes on Grace. She stands supported by Gene, face white as a sheet, floor beneath her feet shiny and slick.  
   “Jesus, Grace.”  
   She flashes him a weak smile. “You ready to be an uncle, big brother?”

   Babe’s about to give up and run back to call an ambulance, the engine refusing to turn over for the fourth time, when a set of keys sails through the open window. Liebgott appears, face sheepish and blossoming red and purple.  
   “Take mine.” He says.  
   Babe looks at him for a moment. “Thanks.”  
   “I’m sorry – about what I said. I didn’t mean it, not really.”  
   “I’m sorry ‘bout punching you.”  
   “It’s alright.” He touches his eye socket, wincing slightly. “Nice right hook, by the way.”  
   “Thanks.”

   In the back of Liebgott’s car, Grace screams. Babe watches her worriedly in the rearview mirror as Gene murmurs to her, smoothing back the hair plastered to her face. When he asks Gene if he knows what to do, Gene tells him wryly that soldiers don’t tend to give birth very often.  
   “Ed – Ed I can’t do this. I’m not ready.” Grace gasps, voice shaky and hoarse.  
   “You’re the size of a planet, Grace; you look ready to me.”  
   She laughs despite herself, but it sputters out as quickly as it came. “No, I mean – I’m not – I can’t…” Another wail. And then, panting, “Will you take him?”  
   She spits the words out quickly, and for a moment Babe doesn’t comprehend them.  
   “Him… the baby?”  
   “No, the family dog. Jesus Christ, Ed.”  
   Babe’s eyes meet Gene’s in the mirror, holding them as long as he can before he’s forced to turn back to the road.  
   “Please.”  
   “Alright.” Gene murmurs, wiping another strand of hair from her forehead. “We’ll take him.”  
   Babe catches the barest hint of a smile on his lips.

   ‘He’ turns out to be a girl, slimy and pink and screaming and possibly the most beautiful thing Babe’s ever seen. When the doctor hands her to Grace, washed and swaddled tightly in a blanket, he smiles at the way her damp little tufts of red hair mirror Grace’s own.  
   Grace looks like she might pass out, but still, she beams.  
   “What are you going to name her?”  
   She seems to mull the question over for a moment before answering.  
   “You should name her." She says. "She’s yours.”  
    _Yours_. A family. His and Gene’s family.  
   It won’t be easy. Suspicious neighbours will shoot dirty looks in the street, and their children will bully her without really knowing why. Even to those closest, most open-minded, she will have to explain with a nervous stammer that her father is really her uncle, and that he and the war buddy who lives with them are more than friends.  
   But there will be good things, too. Her first steps, first words, first day of school, and eventually her graduation. She’ll go on to study medicine, and Gene will try to tell her all he knows and be relieved to discover her experiences will be nothing like his own. Gene will teach her to play guitar and Babe will teach her to drive, and she’ll groan good-naturedly as she watches her parents twirl each other around the kitchen to The Beatles. Babe will lead – he always was the dancer – and the war will be half a lifetime ago.  
   Babe is quiet for a long time.  
   His eyes meet Gene’s, and he finds he knows the answer. There could never be anything else.  
   “Renée.” Gene says finally. “We’ll name her Renée.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A longer chapter, and the last. My first ever fic, it's been a journey! Thank you all so much, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> P.S. I didn't include it because the timeline didn't fit, but the song I was thinking of was It Don't Come Easy by Ringo Starr. Listen to it, and imagine Gene and Babe dancing together in the kitchen. Trust me.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Lucie for helping me with the french, and Kelly (aka Alioseven) for just helping me with life in general (and beta'ing this fic. That too).


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